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All posts by Chris Williams

Let’s get this out the way at the start: I’m a big Metal Gear Solid fan. As action stealth games go, I believe them to be the best of the genre. It’s easy to understand though, why people would be put off by the needlessly complex plots and excessive cutscenes that Hideo Kojima has been weaving around the series ever since the excellent 1998 original was released. They are, to all intents and purposes, gibberish to all but hardcore fans, but I for one adore the games in spite of them. Continue Reading

I was a huge fan of Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and other classic side scrolling beat em ups from the 16 bit era, but always felt that the genre had much more to offer. The Behemoth’s 2008 hit Castle Crashers went some way to towards this by adding RPG elements such as leveling up and four player co-op and provided more depth and replay value. Although Castle Crashers was a fantastic game by all accounts, the art style did not appeal to me so I probably didn’t give it a fair shake. Cue Vanillaware, who following successes with their other side scrolling efforts such as Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade, have in Dragon’s Crown created a beautiful, finely balanced RPG brawler which is quite unlike anything I have played before. Continue Reading